As shareholder profits increase, workers’ wages have stagnated

(Graphic by The Washington Post) A relentless focus on maximizing shareholder value has contributed to stagnant middle-class wages in the United States and fueled the rise of a society increasingly divided between haves and have-nots, according to a new working paper published by the Roosevelt Institute, a progressive economic think tank.

“Nearly fifty years of increasing focus on shareholder payments has cost American workers the chance to do well when corporations do well,” the study’s author, Lenore Palladino, said in a statement. “The misguided assumption that corporate prosperity should benefit only shareholders has hurt the ability of employees to bargain for a share of that prosperity…